Greetings all, sorry for the long post fellas, but I have a Frigidaire FRS26HF5AW2 SxS that I've been trying to troubleshoot throughout this Thanksgiving holiday, and have been storing our food in coolers in my truck outside. It wasn't cooling. No fan or air blowing inside.Looked at the back and it was dirty, but the condenser fan was working so I vacuumed the condenser fins and everything underneath.I unplugged the unit.I took off the ice maker and the freezer panel. The evap was frozen over solid and the evap fan was unobstructed BUT not running.It had a combination of "snow" encased by ice throughout.I removed the wires going to the defrost heater and got a 34 ohms reading using a digital meter..I should of left the defrost T stat encased in ice to check it but didn't. I used a heat gun to melt the ice instead and clipped the wires and removed the defrost T stat.It showed a "1" on my digital meter at room temp.With it being like 20-25 degrees today, I placed it outside on the porch for 1/2 hour, then stuck it in a bag of ice for good measure and checked againbut it showed the same reading of "1" hot or cold.. By now I was thinking this T stat is bad, but I did some additional tinkering.

I left off the stat, and twisted the wires it connects to together, bypassing it, plugged in and the compressor and evap fan came on and it seemed to run like it should.

It ran for about 1 hour then shut off. It went into defrost mode. I checked this by placing my hand near the evap/heater and it was warm and melting what little frost accumulated away. Now I was certain the stat was the problem...or so I thought..For the heck of it I re-attached the defrost T stat, and once again, the evap fan didn't come on just like before so I removed it, again..I retested it, cussed at it, and had a stare down contest with the thing. After doing hours of research, and running out of options, I decided to just put it back on and leave it alone, but not without plugging it in one more time..Lo and behold everything kicked on. Compressor, both fans. etc. I let it run.I noticed that it would periodically shut off and on, every hour or so. I I let it run overnight hoping for the best....Next morning (Thanksgiving) it was running but no where near cold enough.So the thing seems to be running ok and it tries to cool, except that it seems to be going into defrost mode at way too soon of intervals?Is the defrost T stat bad, causing this by and producing the short defrost times? OR could the ADC/board/timer be bad, or both?

I wish there was a way to bypass the defrost cycle or heating element, like I did the T stat, just to see if it will get cold enough, in order to eliminate a system seal problem? I have to do something desperate since parts are hard to find, and even the defrost T stat is going to take 1 week to deliver....I can't afford to replace the unit with another used one at this time so I need to do what I can to nurse it along somehow or use my old Ford Explorer as our fridge ..Any help or tips would be greatly appreciated, thanks. -JC

Thank you I appreciate you confirming that, and the T stat you linked is priced well too and I'm going to order it soon as I clear it with the owner, btw is it possible to use the wiring schematics to bypassthe defrost system just temporarily till it arrives without disabling the evap fan, compressor and condenser fan? I know it's mickey mouse to the extreme, but just trying to get by for a few days.Thanks again for your help-JC

The defrost thermostat completes the circuit to the evaporator fan motor. If you splice the thermostat wires together, the fan will run but you won't have any temperature limit during the defrost cycle. You could disconnect the defrost heater at the side opposite from the def tstat. Then connect your fan to that. This bypasses the heater and tstat so the fan will run but the heater won't heat during defrost. I hope this makes sense.

You don't want a dead short or you'll fry the ADC. If you look at the schematic, the evaporator gets neutral power through the defrost heater and thermostat. You want bypass those two components so the fan will run. It's hard to say if connecting the two plugs will work without actually looking at the fridge. Personally, I don't think I'd mess with it until you have the part in hand, it's too easy to mess it up and cause more problems. Tech sheet.

Thanks for your assistance and the informative info that you provide on here.Update-The compressor stopped working altogether so before ordering the new defrost T stat, I decided to snoop around a little more and took a look at the ADC board, and sure enough it was burnt. It appears to have been fried at/near the temp control prong, and compressor prong. So the Frigidaire is toast and out of my price range to repair.....I found a used Kenmore (mechanical defrost setup) that works but needed a thorough cleaning and vacuum of years worth of dust at the condenser and compressor.While doing this, I noticed 2 wires that go to it's compressor severely frayed, and looks to have been chewed on? by mice? These 2 were frayed completely down to exposed copper wire, and looked to be a fire hazard just waiting to happen, so before I plugged it in I replaced them.I thought I would share these 2 things on your forum to provide awareness of additional thingsto look out for. Thanks again for the help-JC

It looks like a short circuit fried a trace on the ADC. You could fix the short and repair the trace but it sounds like you've moved on. I don't know we why don't see electrocuted mice everywhere with all the wire chewing they do.

Yep.. I Should of included doing a visual of the board. I also noticed that the evap was only getting frosted at the inlet and maybe the first row, even after I disabled the heater..It's possible I may have fried things, but wont ever know for sure as I didn't check the ADC board at the outset.I had to pull the trigger on getting another unit as we were without a fridge since Nov. 28th..

It really is weird that there are no dead mice carcases...So...is my bottom freezer, used Kenmore any good/bad or just different then the top freezer setups,aside from the cold air being blown upwards instead of down? It's much noisier then I'm accustomed to, with all the buzz/clicks and humming....But it works!